Paris/Bercy Masters tournament director Guy Forget says the ATP could soon vote to move the tournament’s dates from the week before the ATP World Tour Finals in London to sometime in February, beginning in 2014.
As part of the restructuring of the ATP calendar to give players a longer off-season, the ATP eliminated the idle week in between the Paris/Bercy Masters and the ATP World Tour Finals, which makes it difficult for the French Tennis Federation-owned tournament to insure high quality fields. The event is mandatory but with some exceptions; many of the singles players who have already qualified for London don’t want to risk injuring or exhausting themselves the week before the season-ending championship.
“To stay glued to the [ATP Finals] is extremely dangerous for us,” Forget told the French media. “Upon my arrival [as tournament director], I told [French Federation CEO] Gilbert Ysern the need to find an alternative solution.”
Finding a date in February won’t be easy under the current calendar. Next year, the first round of Davis Cup will be played during the first week of the month, which is the week after the Australian Open ends. There are then three weeks of tournaments before the Indian Wells Masters, and all those weeks have three tournaments occurring simultaneously. In order to put a Masters event in one of those weeks, three of those tournaments would have to have their dates changed outside of the month of February.
“We would go from one extreme to another but I prefer this option,” Forget said.
The 2012 Paris/Bercy Masters begins on October 29. An ATP spokesperson told TENNIS.com that the topic will be on the ATP Board of Directors agenda during their meetings in London next month, but “absolutely nothing has been decided.”